Blocks: Course dedication
Aday TalaveraIntroduction
This block allows to see the estimated dedication time to a Moodle course by the participants of the course.
How dedication time is estimated?
Time is estimated based in the concepts of Session and Session duration applied to Moodle's log entries:
- Click: every time that a user access to a page in Moodle a log entry is stored.
- Session: set of two or more consecutive clicks in which the elapsed time between every pair of consecutive clicks does not overcome an established maximum time.
- Session duration: elapsed time between the first and the last click of the session.
Features
This block is intended to be used only by teachers, so students aren't going to see it and their dedication time. However, block can be configured to show dedication time to students too.
Teachers can use a tool to analyse dedication time within a course. The tool provides three views:
- Dedication time of the course: calculates total dedication time, mean dedication time and connections per day for each student.
- Dedication time of a group: the same but only for choosed group members.
- Dedication of a student: detailed sessions for a student with start date & time, duration and ip.
The tools have a link to download all data in spreadsheet format. The use is restricted by a capability to teachers and admins only.
This block cannot be used in the site page, only in courses pages.
All texts in English and Spanish (AMOS).
Available versions- Moodle 2.0 - 2.6: old Moodle 2 version.
- Moodle 2.7+ / 3.x+: Moodle 2.7 brought a new log system, so the plugin needed to be redone to use this new system. If you have upgraded your site from older versions (2.6 or below) you will need to enable legacy logging in Moodle administration to get dedication time. If you restore a course from an older version in a newer version, you won't have any problem.
Support
Support is offered in English and Spanish in these forum discussions:
- English discussion: https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=109487
- Spanish discussion: https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=109489
Code repository: https://bitbucket.org/ciceidev/moodle_block_dedication
Issues: https://bitbucket.org/ciceidev/moodle_block_dedication/issues
Credits
This block was developed and produced by CICEI at Las Palmas de Gran Canaria University.
First version for Moodle 1.9 by Borja Rubio Reyes.
Updated and improved version for Moodle 2.x and 3.x by Aday Talavera Hierro.
Screenshots
I made a slight change to the plugin to use the standard log instead of the legacy log. In dedication_lib.php, changed line 55 from
`$logs = $DB->get_records_select('log', $where, $params, 'time ASC', 'id,time');`
to
`$logs = $DB->get_records_select('logstore_standard_log', $where, $params, 'timecreated ASC', 'id,timecreated');`
Then, I hunted through and changed all references to the columns `time` and `course` to `timecreated` and `courseid`.
There is a newer version of this plugin that hasn't been released here.
We've been using this officially unreleased version of the plugin in Moodle 2.7, 2.9 and 3.1 without any issue; it was originally published by Aday Talavera here:
https://bitbucket.org/ciceidev/moodle_block_dedication/issues/10/no-me-funciona-el-bloque-en-la-versi-n-27
And this is the direct link to it:
https://bitbucket.org/ciceidev/moodle_block_dedication/get/MOODLE_27_STABLE.zip
It has all the changes needed to work with the new log system.
Please could you let us know if there is planning for a 3.2 version of this plugin?
Many thanks
As Iñigo said, there was an advice in the plugin description almost since a year, redirecting people to download the new version directly from the repository.
A lot of people also directly asked me by private messages.
Please contact me by private messages if you found any error.
He instalado la última versión de la herramienta Dediación al Curso en mi plataforma Moodle 3.0. El módulo aparece perfectamente en el curso de prueba con el que estoy aprendiendo a usarlo y me indica el tiempo de conexión cuando entro con un perfil de alumno de prueba. Como profesor también puedo ver mis tiempos de dedicación. El problema viene al pulsar el botón de "Herramienta de dedicación" para sacar el tiempo por cada alumno. Al pulsar en dicho botón no me muestra los tiempos, sino que me saca directamente a mi zona de "Area personal".
¿Alguien puede aportarme un poco de luz? Lo agradecería porque lo necesito para próximos cursos.
Muchas gracias de antemano y felicidades por la concepción de una herramienta tan útil.
Is there any moodle 3.4+ update?
Are you planning to do a Moodle 3.5 update? Our academics love this tool as it captures our student learning time on the course.